By the European Jewish Press
Roger Cukierman was elected Sunday as new president of CRIF, the umbrella representative body of Jewish organizations in France, for a three-year mandate. He succeeds Richard Prasquier whose two consecutive terms ended in May. Cukierman was elected by the General Assembly in the second round of voting with 61 percent of the votes against 39 percent for Arie Bensemhoun, the head of the Jewish community of Toulouse. More than 150 representatives from the 72 CRIF member associations participated in the election.
Aged 76, Roger Cukierman is a former senior executive in the banking group Edmond de Rothschild. He already chaired CRIF from 2001 to 2007. He said to place his new mandate "under the sign of a relentless, constant and determined fight against anti-Semitism and the respect of memory. I want a CRIF stronger, strictly independent and open to the civil society as a whole,” he said.
The CRIF, born during the resistance to Nazi occupation in 1944, includes most of the major Jewish organizations in France, but the Central Consistory has left the institution in 2004. About 600,000 Jews live in France.
CRIF is affiliated with the World Jewish Congress and its president is automatically a vice-president of the WJC.
